Symbols & Buttons Lecture Notes -

Objective #1: Be able to create, edit, and work with symbols and instances

• reuse symbols to keep file size down
• a specific use of a symbol is called an instance
• each instance can have its own attributes such as color and shape
• symbols are stored in the Library panel
• there are three types of symbols
  • graphic
  • button
  • movie clip
• creating symbols
• use the Insert/New Symbol menu command
• draw an object and then use the Insert/Convert to Symbol menu command
• create an instance of a symbol by dragging a symbol from the Library panel onto the stage
• you can the symbol by double-clicking its entry in the Library panel. This will cause the change to propagate to all of the instances of the symbol in the movie
• when you edit an instance of a symbol, you can't make changes to just part of an instance. To edit the instance don't double-click on the instance, which will take you to the symbol's editing window. Rather, you must edit an instance by making changes in the Property Inspector when the instance is selected. You can use the Modify/Break Apart menu command though to break the link between an instance and its symbol.

Objective #2: Be able to manage the Library

• you can use symbols from the Flash common library which is accessible from the Windows/Common Library menu command
• you should create folders in a Flash movie's libary in order to organize related symbols (i.e. graphics, movie clips, buttons, etc.)
• libraries can be imported from one Flash movie to another but realize that each movie file has its own library.

Objective #3: Be able to create button symbols

• each button symbol has its own timeline which really isn't a lifespan sort of thing like a movie file's timeline. Rather, a button's timeline is Flash's way of organizing the Up, Over, and Down states along with the Hit region that defines the clickable area of a button.
• if you want a button to have a given state such as an Over state, you must insert a keyframe into that frame cell of the button's timeline.
• either click the Scene 1 button or click the Edit/Document menu command to return to the main stage.
• to test a button while previewing a movie in Flash, you must first click the Control/Enable Simple Buttons menu command.

Objective #4: Be able to assign actions to buttons

• assign an action to the down state of a button using the ActionScript language that is provided with Flash
  • select the Actions panel
  • available mouse events that can be used with a button are press, release, release outside, key press, roll over, roll out, drag over, drag out
• Activity: Create a static web site that looks like three pages but is really one Flash .swf file. That is, create a home page that is really Frame 1 with 2 buttons and another page that is really Frame 10 and a third page that is really Frame 20. Assign gotoandPlay actions to the two button instances and stop actions to frames 10 and 20.